


Summer Shudder

by Lark (bleedinink)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Established Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, F/F, Gen, M/M, Post-Season/Series 04, Semi-Canon Compliant, Wedding Planning, background sterek
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-06-27 16:39:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15689292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bleedinink/pseuds/Lark
Summary: With nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, Cora had spent the last eight years traveling the world. But she never went back to Beacon Hills. There was no appeal for her, and going back after all these years because her brother was gettingmarriedof all things felt like a disaster waiting to happen.She didn't think that disaster would start with wedding planning and a Banshee.





	1. Love Like Winter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_problem_with_stardust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_problem_with_stardust/gifts).



> This is an ongoing fic that was requested by the_problem_with_stardust as part of a Fandom Cares auction. Jack let me have pretty much full rein on this one, so naturally, I went wild.
> 
> This story is canon compliant up through season 4, all events after that will be disregarded. This story takes place 8 years after the events of season 3A, placing it at the beginning of 2020.

[ ](https://i.imgur.com/rKex6HP.png)

 

“I’m sorry, you’re doing _what?_ ” She was hearing things, right?

“I _said_ , I’m getting married!” Derek’s excitement seemed to radiate through the phone, and Cora had to pull it a few inches away from her face just to avoid the splitting pain of his booming voice.

“To _who?_ ” The words were out before Cora could stop them, and she almost regretted it. Almost. Derek only laughed at her, though, and Cora almost wished he’d been offended.

“Stiles.”

“Stiles? The scrawny kid who thinks he can beat up danger with a baseball bat?”

“We’ve been working on that, but yeah. That’s the one.”

“I was worried ‘Stiles’ was becoming a common name.” A short, wry laugh escaped her – a replacement for blurting out “ _why?”_ – and she shook her head. “Congrats, Derek. You’re both insane, but, well.” Another dry laugh, a little louder this time.

 _“I’m not insane!”_ was shouted from across from wherever Derek was, in a voice that was very distinctly Stiles’.

“I’d argue with you, but I-” Derek cut her off before she could finish, probably anticipating something that would start an argument.

“ _So_ , Cora, it’s been awhile. Where are you at now?”

“France. I’ve been city hopping for a couple weeks. I’m in Calais right now.”

“Why?” Stiles asked, having moved in closer to Derek and the phone.

“You do know it’s 3 am here, right?”

“Yeah, 3 am on New Year’s Eve. Most people are up and partying.” A pause. “Are _you_ partying?”

“Does it _sound_ like I’m at a party, Stiles?” she asked, covering her face with a hand.

“Sorry if we woke you up, but- Well, anyway…” Derek sounded like he was gearing himself up to say something big, and Cora felt a growing sense of unease. “You’ll come to the wedding, right?”

“Yeah, sure. When is it?”

“We haven’t set a date yet, but I was hoping you’d come out before the wedding.”

“How soon?”

“Next week?”

“Is this a shotgun wedding? Did you get Stiles pregnant?”

“No! That’s not even- What?”

Cora rolled her eyes. “It’s a joke. Don’t get so worked up.”

“So, is that a yes?” There was a faint note of anxiety in his voice, something Derek was obviously trying to keep concealed from her.

“Why next week? You’re not seriously having the wedding this month? …Are you?” Cora was exhausted. Trying to process the idea of her brother getting married was already a monumental task; throwing out the question of bringing her back to Beacon Hills after all this time – within the next _week_ – wasn’t appealing. And if Derek was bringing her in “before the wedding”, then he had either waited until the last minute to tell her he was even engaged, or something else was going on. But what?

“No, no, we don’t really have a date yet. I just… I haven’t seen you in _years_ , Cora.”

 _And whose fault is that?_ But Cora didn’t say anything, throat tightening as she thought about the last time she had seen Derek: watching him leave her back in Mexico. _“You’ll be safer here,”_ he’d told her, but “safer” still wasn’t exactly “safe.” “Safer” was lonelier, filled with strangers, and hopping from place to place, country to country, because nowhere felt like home. _Nothing will ever feel like home._

“Are you still there?”

“Yeah.” She didn’t know how long she’d stayed silent, but it had been enough for Derek to notice, to wonder.

“I’m sorry, I know I sprung this on you. I woke you up, I-”

“I was awake, it’s just…” She sighed, throat burning as she tried to hold in her emotions long enough to get off the phone. The last thing she needed was to have her older brother hear her cry. “I need to think about it.”

“I’m sorry, Cora.”

“I’ll talk to you later.”

“Okay.”

“Congrats. Again.”

With that, she hung up the phone and shut it off. She didn’t expect anyone else to try contacting her tonight, but the feeling of being able to shut out the world was nice. _Especially now that the world has decided to come back for me._

 

* * *

 

Cora still wasn’t sure how it happened, but a few days after first talking to Derek and Stiles, she found herself in Paris late at night, waiting to board a flight to San Francisco. She didn’t particularly enjoy planes, but she had subjected herself to it so many times in the last several years that she was at least able to manage it. However, the 14 hours she was about to spend to get back to Cali was the longest flight she’d ever signed up for, and she couldn’t say she was looking forward to it.

She kept herself distracted as much as she could once on board, determined not to let her thoughts dwell on Derek, Stiles, Beacon Hills, and everything that waited for her there. Or the loud, smelly passengers. _It’s too much._ Despite her best efforts, the thoughts were invasive, especially the ones urging her to just turn back at the next stopover and get on the next flight to literally anywhere else. Cora wondered if the fact that Derek was her only living relative that wasn’t a murderous asshole should be enough to convince her to go back to a town where only bad things happened, or if she would be justified in cutting him off, however blameless he might really be.

She loved Derek, she did, really; but she didn’t _know_ Derek, and Derek didn’t really know Cora. After the fire, Cora and Derek had both spent the better part of seven years thinking the other was dead. Derek had saved her from the Raging Hormones Pack that had locked her in a vault the last time she had gone back to Beacon Hills, and had later given up his own Alpha status to heal her when she was dying of mistletoe poisoning, but neither had spent any “quality time” with the other.

Cora asked no questions about what Derek and Laura had done after the fire, at least, not any that went past the surface level. Truth be told, Cora didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to hear about the life she missed out on; even if it was only Derek and Laura, it would have been better than being 10 years old and believing that you were the only survivor of a house fire that had devoured and consumed your entire family.

Derek hadn’t asked much about Cora’s life post-fire either, something Cora suspected had to do with guilt, though she didn’t know why. He knew she had been taken in by a small pack in South America, and had brought her back there when _he_ decided she wasn't safe in Beacon Hills. Once again, Cora was a lone wolf.

With nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, Cora had spent the last eight years traveling the world. But she never went back to Beacon Hills, California, or anywhere else in the country. There was no appeal for her, and going back after all these years because her brother was getting _married_ of all things felt like a disaster waiting to happen. _I’ll just go and get it over with and that’s that. Then I’ll go… somewhere else._

The war in her head raged on through the night, until she was so exhausted from it that her thoughts were only able to boil down to the very basics, and the terrible airplane food wasn’t great for restoring strength to an active and hungry werewolf.

The plane finally made it into San Francisco somewhere after 8 PM, and Cora was starving and almost asleep on her feet. Stumbling through the airport, she could only manage the vague thought that she hoped it wouldn’t take too long to find Derek. Stopping after exiting the gates and grabbing her bags, she rubbed her eyes and looked around, vision blurry. _Ugh. Too many people. Too much going on._

Eventually, she ran into Derek – quite literally. “Fuck, sor- Derek?”

Derek grinned at her, and _wow_ was that a weird sight. “Hey, Cora. It’s good to see you.”

“Yeah… You too.” She rubbed at her eyes, taking him in and feeling like she was looking up at giant.

“You ready to go?”

“Did you bring food?”

“We can get food.” The amusement in his voice was so strange, and once again Cora felt unsettled. _Why can’t I just feel happy for him? At least one of us has their shit together._

The walk to the car was quiet, and neither of them spoke until Derek pulled into the drive-thru of a McDonald’s right outside the airport. After ordering, Cora was silent again, save for wolfing down her cheeseburgers. When she’d finished, Derek had started talking to her, but in her current state of exhaustion, she didn’t catch any of it. Head lolling to the side, Cora fell asleep.

 

She startled awake when she felt hands on her, instinctively kicking a leg out in defense. “Ow, shit!” Blinking, Cora realized she’d just kicked Stiles in the shin.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Losing my leg, thanks! What the hell, dude?”

“ _You_ reached in here – while I was _sleeping_. What did you think was gonna happen?”

“Nice to see you, too, sis.”

Cora rolled her eyes and got out of the car, roughly shoving past Stiles to grab the last of her bags from the trunk. Derek had gotten most of her things by the time she’d reached the back of the car, and Cora almost wanted to argue that she could get everything herself, but exhaustion quickly put that battle to bed. Stifling a yawn, she followed Derek and a dramatically limping Stiles up to their house.

She was given the quick tour, nodding off while walking around. One of them must have caught on, luckily, because Cora was soon shown to a guest room and being bid goodnight. She didn’t remember getting ready for bed or unpacking anything, just the softness of the mattress as she sunk into it and burrowed under the blankets, letting sleep take her again.

 

* * *

 

 

Blinding sunlight woke her, offending her eyes. Cora pulled a pillow over her head, grunting her displeasure into the mattress. Turning, she stared off at the pale blue wall across from the bed (the one _without_ rude windows), groggy mind trying to process where she was at. _I don’t think we’re in France anymore, Toto. Ugh._

Groaning, Cora threw the pillow off her face and glowered at the ceiling. The room was too bright to go back to sleep and getting up to shut the blinds was unappealing and probably ineffective. _I’m buying blackout curtains later. This is ridiculous._ Rubbing at her eyes, Cora waited for her vision to adjust to the harsh morning light, staring at the rotating fan blades and hoping they might entrance her back into sleep.

When that didn’t work (despite her very best lackluster efforts), she grudgingly kicked the covers off and headed into the attached bathroom. _At least I don’t have to go out there looking like a_ complete _train wreck._ The mirror only confirmed this line of thought, reflecting the mess of hair that managed to somehow be both flat and poofing out in a tangled rat's nest, as if Cora had tried to battle a sea monster in her sleep.

With a sigh, Cora went back into the bedroom for her brush and soap, realizing there was a smell about her from the plane that even she couldn’t mask. After a ridiculous amount of time spent detangling her hair and then scrubbing herself as clean as possible, Cora dried herself off and began digging through her clothes.

She didn’t remember much of last night, other than passing out in Derek’s car and sleep-eating cheeseburgers. Now, she was about to go out and face him as a mostly-functioning human being for the first time in almost a decade, and the pressure began to mount as the minutes ticked by, knowing that Derek and Stiles would be waiting for her. _Then again, for all I know they could be asleep still._ The infrequent communication she’d kept up with her brother didn’t leave much room for knowing his schedule. Hell, she didn’t even know he was seeing anyone until a week ago. _But I guess that’s just as much my fault as Derek’s._

Forcing those particular thoughts from her mind, Cora threw on clothes, not paying much attention to what she was wearing so long as it meant she wasn’t naked. _The misfortunes of living around other people,_ she grumbled as she threw a loose tank top over her head. Dressed, she plugged her ears as she turned on the blow dryer, cursing her long hair and her own unwillingness to part with any of it.

She spent the next thirty minutes packing everything back up into her suitcase while listening to the sounds of the house around her. It was close to 10 am by the time she’d finished flitting around the room and couldn’t come up with anything else to do. Derek and Stiles had definitely been awake for a while, and she could smell bacon and eggs, coaxing a growl from her stomach.

As she was finally getting ready to leave the room, she heard someone new enter the house. Cora stopped and tensed, listening to the click of heels on tile and frowning. _Who the hell…?_ Cautiously, she opened the bedroom door. Immediately, she was hit by the scent of rosy perfume and _oh, memories_ , red hair, red blood, red eyes… _Lydia?_

_Why the hell is Lydia here?_

Shaking her head, Cora took deep breaths and a prolonged moment to regain her composure. She heard voices coming from the kitchen, though it took a minute to make any sense of what they were saying, head swimming from anxiety and new scents, making her glad that she had masked her own.

“—got in around 10 last night, right, Der?”

“Something like that. She was pretty out of it.”

“Well, is she up? I have to attend a seminar later this afternoon and—”

Cora stepped out into the kitchen and the conversation stopped. All eyes turned to her, curious at first and then amused.

“Oh, honey, everybody already knew that,” Lydia said, finally breaking the silence with a tone that was so casual yet confusing.

“What?”

Derek cleared his throat and waved a hand vaguely in Cora’s direction. “Your shirt.”

“My—? Oh.” Cora looked down, and _of course_ , of fucking _course_ this is what she got for just throwing on the first thing she saw in her suitcase: she had walked into the kitchen to see her brother, his new fiancé, and an old acquaintance for the first time in 8 years, wearing a black tank top that said, “ _I’m not interested in being polite or heterosexual_.” Really, she should have seen that one coming.

“Where’s breakfast?” she said, turning to Derek and hoping this could all just be glossed over, though she noticed Stiles laughing, trying to be quiet about it, and a smirk on Lydia’s face that she didn’t even bother to hide. Cora rolled her eyes and pushed roughly past both of them, stealing the first plate of food she saw.

“You were right, Derek. She _is_ food motivated,” Stiles grinned, looking very pleased with himself.

“I haven’t eaten in twelve hours, fuck you.”

“Just as charming and polite as ever, huh?”

Cora looked up at Stiles and fixed him with a glare for a good moment or two before going back to her food. Stiles and Lydia went back to their conversation while she ate, and Cora zoned out, still drained and seriously considering the idea of crawling back into bed.

Derek took the empty plate from her after Cora had been standing there for a few minutes, holding it and looking around the large kitchen for the first time. _Damn, they really went all out._ Yawning, she took stock of the room while Lydia and Stiles droned on.

Several minutes passed before Stiles started waving at Cora to get her attention. “Earth to Cora, come in, Cora!”

She swatted his hand away and scowled. “What?”

“Were you listening?”

“Obviously not.”

Lydia rolled her eyes and Stiles let out an exasperated noise that fell somewhere between a squeak and a sigh. Cora just stared at him, waiting.

“Okay, so, Derek told you that he wanted you to help with the wedding, right?”

“Right…” Glancing over at Lydia, she began to remember why she hated it when Stiles opened his mouth.

“Right, so, well—Lydia is in charge of the wedding planning.” He made vague gestures between the two girls, and even several years of traveling to foreign countries couldn’t help her even begin to decipher what he was trying to convey.

Raising an eyebrow at Stiles, she glanced over to Lydia, trying to see if she was at all confused. For the most part, she looked composed. _But that’s what she does best._

“Then why do you need me?”

“We want you to help Lydia plan the wedding.”

“Why?”

“I told you she wasn’t going to go for it,” Lydia chipped in, sounding both smug and a little relieved.

“Aww, c’mon, Cora… It’ll be fun! You know, picking venues, trying cake samples, getting to be in charge of something—kinda.”

“I’m sorry, which part of that was supposed to be fun?”

“Okay, so yeah, it’s a lot of work. But that’s why Lydia needs your help! I mean, she’s _totally_ capable of doing it on her own, but who doesn’t want some help with something like this?”

“Are you trying to convince Lydia or me?” she asked, giving them both a skeptical look. “Besides, if it’s such a huge deal that you guys actually dragged me back _here_ because Lydia’s apparently so desperate for my help—”

“Uh, not desperate, sweetie.”

“—then why don’t you just hire someone? You know, those weird little women called ‘wedding planners’, I hear they specialize in this kind of stuff. Some of them will even plan your wedding _for_ you in exchange for money.”

“Because, okay,” Stiles started, scoffing and making noises in that strange manner he took up when dealing with an argument he hadn’t entirely planned for. “Look, we want it to be personal, okay, and you’re Derek’s sister—”

“Doesn’t make me a wedding planner.”

“Please, Cora?” Derek spoke up for the first time in a while, and she turned to look at him, the hopeful face of a man who was finally starting to get his life somewhere north of the misery they had both known. She had no idea why Derek would want her planning (or fucking up) his wedding, but once again, she found herself unable to tell him no.

“All right, fine,” she sighed, disliking the feeling of utter defeat that settled over her. Looking over at Lydia, she took her in for a moment before asking, “You have my number?”

“Are you asking for business or pleasure?” Cora wanted to wipe the smirk off her face. _With a brick._

“Ha ha, you’re hilarious, princess.” Cora walked over and swiped her phone, putting in her number and sending a text to herself before handing it back to Lydia. “Text me, I guess.”

“I bet you had all the Parisian women falling for you with charming one-liners like that.”

_I think I just sold my soul to the devil, because if this isn’t Hell…_

 


	2. Need Nothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t understand why we’re here.”
> 
> Lydia finished her bite of salad before responding with a simple, “What do you mean?”
> 
> “Why ask me to lunch? If this is a date, we’re off to a terrible start. If it’s not, then I have no idea what’s happening.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who knew wedding planning could get so intense?  
> (Probably anyone that's ever planned a wedding, aka not me.)

[ ](https://i.imgur.com/7NboESA.png)

 

The new Beacon Hills pack held their parties in the same place every year for the past several years now: the top of Derek’s old loft building. Derek had been working on converting the building for a long time, a process that had slowed down considerably after he’d bought a house that was midway between the preserve and the city.

The first place he’d started the long overdue reno was the roof, for reasons Lydia still wasn’t sure amounted to anything more than “werewolf logic.” With some input from Stiles (and probably a few other pack members), the roof was now set up for casual lounging or the odd party. Every few months, someone would decide there was a “party occasion”, inevitably enlisting Lydia to do the bulk of the planning. Luckily for Lydia, the holiday parties were easy to prep for. Turn on the fairy lights, hang a few ribbons, set up some confetti bombs, throw up a 2020 banner, put out enough junk food to feed a small army for a month, and she was done.

Lydia had known that both Stiles and Derek were planning to propose to each other on New Year’s Eve. It was almost laughable how predictable they were together, and trying to keep both of their proposals under wraps had been a very interesting task indeed. She just had to get them to the party and let them sort it out from there.

Derek’s plan was to propose as they watched the ball drop on TV, in lieu of a New Year’s kiss. Stiles wanted to give Derek a glass of champagne with a ring in it somewhere around the one-hour-to-midnight mark. As usual, though, neither of their plans happened quite the way they expected.

Both were visibly nervous the whole day, but Derek was easily winning more points for composure. Lydia put them both to work on party setup, hoping that giving them tasks away from each other would at least prevent Stiles from falling off the building. (Something that they had been able to successfully prevent after the first incident.)

Somewhere shortly after 4, Derek had been setting up the refreshments table while Stiles was _supposed_ to be hanging up the fairy lights in the spots Lydia couldn't reach. Instead, when she stepped back onto the roof, phone pressed to her ear, she was greeted with the unfortunate sight of Stiles pressing Derek into the table at a very awkward angle. She was about to call them out for it when the line picked up and she was greeted by a very bored employee from the local deli.

Suppressing a sigh, Lydia averted her eyes and tried to explain to the man on the other end that _no_ , she _wasn’t_ joking and really _did_ need 200 chicken wings by 8 o’clock. She was getting ready to ask for the manager when there was a loud crash from the table buckling under the weight of two grown-ass men and a glass bowl shattering on the marbled concrete. “ _Seriously?”_ she’d shouted, storming back inside to finish her call.

Scott arrived just as Lydia had finished placing her long, complicated order with the deli and was taking a deep breath before heading back onto the roof. By now, they had managed to fix the table and straighten the dark cloth Lydia had thrown over it. Stiles was far away from the crime scene, actually working on the fairy lights now that he’d accomplished this hour’s catastrophe.

Lydia sat down on one of the couches, taking another deep breath as she watched Scott walk over to Stiles, pulling something out of his pocket. “Hey, dude,” Scott started, waiting for Stiles to get down off the small step ladder. “I got the ring right before they closed. You’ve _totally_ got this, Derek won’t eve—”

“SCOTT!” Stiles flailed his arms until one of them managed to land a hand over his mouth. “ _Shut up._ ”

Lydia and Derek both seemed to have jumped up at the same time – Derek having been crouched behind the table picking up glass shards. “What won’t I do?”

Lydia kept a straight face, but she watched as the three of them just stared at each other, startled and unsure of the situation. “Uh…”

“Stiles? Did he say something about a ring?” Derek looked very confused, hands full of broken glass as he glanced between the two of them.

“I’m sorry, man. I didn’t think Derek was here.” Lydia rolled her eyes at the sad puppy-dog look Scott put on and walked over to Derek. Carefully taking the glass from his hands, she leaned in close, and whispered, “I don’t think your plan’s going to pan out. Just go for it.”

“But I—”

“Do you trust me or not?” Derek sighed, but didn’t argue.

“Stiles?” Stepping forward, Derek pulled out the ring he’d gotten for Stiles and knelt down on one knee. “Will you marry me?”

After a short, incredulous silence, Stiles exploded. “What? No! No way!” Derek was startled and moved back, quickly jumping to his feet. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this! _I_ was supposed to propose to _you!_ Tonight! Not right now! Not because Scott’s a—”

Loudly clearing her throat, Lydia stepped over and cut him off. “What Stiles _means_ is _yes_ , yes he will marry you. Now can you two _please_ stop breaking things?”

The words were hardly out of her mouth before Stiles and Derek were all over each other, Stiles having climbed Derek’s body like a koala clinging to a tree. It was the worst proposal Lydia had ever seen, but she supposed it was more realistic than the typical, overblown proposals you hear, with girls getting proposed to via some celebrity or while skydiving. The end result was probably a happier one anyway, if the sounds of them fumbling their way down the stairs to the loft were any indication.

Not wasting any time, Lydia put Scott to work. They had no time to lose, especially now that she’d lost her original “help.”

 

The party was well underway by the time Derek and Stiles reappeared from the lower floors. One look told Lydia that their joyful mood had plummeted. Frowning, she walked over to them. “Did you get her?”

Derek didn’t answer, walking over to the punch bowl instead, leaving Stiles alone with Lydia. “It didn’t go as well as he hoped.”

“She said no, didn’t she?”

“Well, no. But she didn’t say yes, either. She sounded really… weird.” Stiles sighed and rubbed at his face, one hand running back through his hair while the other dropped to his side.

“Weird like…?”

“Weird like… like she was caught off guard and even kind of, I dunno, _angry?_ It was just, not good. Derek’s upset and convinced she’s not gonna call back.”

“And what do you think?” Lydia glanced over at Derek, who was currently being congratulated by an excited Liam that was clearly incapable of taking a hint.

“I really don’t know, I mean… She said she’d come to the wedding, but she didn’t seem all that interested. Then when Derek brought up wanting to bring her out sooner, she just got… weird.” Stiles went on and kept trying to explain, but all Lydia could really gather from it was that Derek’s little sister had just crushed his heart by not being excited about his wedding.

Lydia couldn’t say she was surprised. Other than elementary school, she had only really known Cora for about a month several years ago, and from what she gathered between personal experiences, social media, and conversations about her latest haunting spot after the monthly phone call with her big brother, Cora wasn’t going to be very interested in things like weddings. Or even just staying put in one place for more than a few months.

When Stiles showed up at her apartment a few days later saying that Cora was on her way, well, that time Lydia _was_ surprised, to say the least. The real kicker was when Stiles told her that Derek wanted Cora to help plan the wedding.

“He doesn’t want me to talk about it, but he’s just—he’s got this idea that she’ll, I dunno, like it or something. And that maybe having a friend will help her or—? It’s—his argument is hard to explain without me telling you what he doesn’t want me to tell you.”

Lydia stared at him, lips pursed. “All I got out of that was this insane idea that Derek thinks Cora likes wedding planning and that she also likes _me._ ”

“Well, she didn’t try to kill you, and honestly as far as the Hales go, that really counts for _something._ And before you ask—no, the homicidal threats and urges don’t count.”

“Good to know.”

 

Over the next couple days, Lydia kept herself busy preparing for the next semester to start after a long and fruitless holiday of failing, yet again, to solve the math problem that her entire doctoral thesis rested upon. Even allowing herself to get drunk and work on it proved useless (not that she expected anything good to come of that particular method, in any case). Getting a wedding thrown on top of her self-imposed rigorous schedule of studying and working was already somewhat of an inconvenience; adding Cora into the mix didn’t instill much confidence for productivity over the next year.

Lydia honestly kept expecting Stiles to call her to say that Cora had flaked at the last minute or come up with some reason why she couldn’t come out for another few months, despite being completely unattached to anyone or any place and drifting as she pleased. There was no mention of Cora, however, until Stiles texted her saying Derek had gone to pick her up from the airport and asked if Lydia could make it over at some point the next day.

There was nothing necessarily _stopping_ Lydia from going over, but the prospect of being faced with Cora again after all this time felt… strange, to say the least. While they had parted on what could be considered friendly terms for a Hale, there was no telling what Cora was like all these years later. Derek had definitely improved from the broody asshole Lydia first knew him as, but had Cora?

After mulling it over for far too long, she finally texted Stiles back to ask for a good time to be there.

At 10 am the next morning, she was, very reluctantly, at Stiles’ and Derek’s house, with Cora nowhere in sight. _Apparently nobody told her she had a guest coming_.

When Cora finally emerged, though, it was priceless, and Lydia didn’t know whether she should be laughing or patting herself on the back. _I **called** it_ , she thought, a smug grin threatening to creep over her face as she stared at Cora’s tank top that very boldly proclaimed her lack of interest in being straight or polite. (Not that the last one had ever been a mystery.)

She hadn’t been at all surprised by Cora’s lack of interest in helping with the wedding planning process, or even the way she so easily blew off being accidentally outed by a shirt. What _did_ surprise Lydia was how relatively calm Cora was throughout her visit. It was a stark contrast to the caustic fire and fury she had known before. _She definitely isn’t lacking in snark, though._

Was it possible that time had mellowed her out? Softened her rage, even? Or was she just subdued by jetlag and a new environment? Only time would really tell, she supposed.

 

Lydia didn’t text Cora for a few days after their first encounter. After eight years away from Beacon Hills, she figured that giving an emotionally volatile werewolf a few days to adjust might be in their best interests. When Friday rolled around and Cora hadn’t reached out (not that she really expected her to), Lydia caved and sent her a message:

**Lydia:** Hey, wanna grab lunch tomorrow? **  
Cora:** Business or pleasure?  
**Lydia:** Funny. Both?  
**Cora:** I’m listening.

After some back and forth, they settled on lunch at A Brewed Awakening. It was fairly new, and Lydia had never been before; she could only assume Cora used the almighty Google to find it. The drive there was quiet, Cora gazing out the window while Lydia let her phone guide them to the strange coffee-shop-restaurant hybrid. It was out by the lake, somewhere Lydia had been able to avoid for quite some time.

The view was impressive, she had to admit. Built with antiquated-looking bricks and stressed wood, the place looked like it belonged there. Inside, A Brewed Awakening was huge, the vaulted glass ceiling definitely contributing to the feeling of being dwarfed by her surroundings.

“Huh.” Lydia looked over at Cora, surprised by the first sound the other girl had made in almost half an hour.

“What?”

Cora shrugged her shoulders and walked toward the glass doors at the back of the building, effortlessly slipping her leather jacket off before pushing a door open onto the patio overlooking the lake. She held it open for Lydia and another couple that weren’t far behind them. Rejoining her, they both looked around until Lydia fixed her gaze on the upper deck, towering above them. _And the water…_

“Scared of heights, princess?”

“ _No_.” Lydia rolled her eyes, then glanced back at the water, a little apprehensive. “But it’s already chilly and I didn’t bring a jacket for sitting outside.”

Cora nodded, seeming to consider Lydia’s words for a moment before turning around and holding the door open once again, waiting for Lydia. She glanced at her, a little confused, but accepted the invitation anyway. Cora followed her in, then took the lead toward a large, circular booth in the back. It had a good view of both entrances, Lydia noted, especially from where Cora sat in the middle.

“Uh, do we really need this for just us?” she asked, hesitantly scooting into the seat, leaving a good foot of distance between them. _There is no dignified way to sit in these things._

“Yes.”

“Okay, then.”

Cora was already flipping through the menu, apparently very engrossed in it. Lydia picked up her own and skimmed through it, glancing over at Cora every so often. Eventually, someone came over for their orders and menus, leaving them alone and Lydia impressed at the amount of food Cora had ordered for one sitting.

“So,” she started after a long moment of silence, “how do you like being back?”

“Well, no one’s tried to kill me yet, so, that’s a surprising improvement.” She shrugged, and Lydia just kind of nodded. Cora certainly hadn’t left Beacon Hills with the best impression the last time she was here. _Or ever, I guess._ “Only a matter of time, though.”

“I wish I could tell you to be more optimistic about that, but…” She gave a short, wry laugh here, shaking her head just slightly. “Must have been nice to get away from it for a while.”

“Sometimes.” Cora looked away, shrugging again. More silence, this time for several moments, and Lydia didn’t quite know how – or if – she should interrupt it. Just as she was trying to figure out something else to say, Cora turned back to face her again. “But I’m sure you’ve heard whatever I’ve told Derek. What about you, though? Last I saw you, you were dating some loser werewolf.”

Lydia nodded, feeling a little shocked. “Aiden. He died. A few months after you left.” If her voice cracked a little, well, Cora was probably the only one that would blame her for it.

“Oh.”

“Nobody told you?”

“I didn’t ask.”

_More like you didn’t care_. Lydia couldn’t blame her much, though. Aiden had been involved in Cora’s kidnapping the last time she’d returned to Beacon Hills, and Cora had had no problems expressing her extreme distaste for both Aiden and his brother, Ethan, when she was here. Despite all that, she had saved Lydia and had helped Lydia to save both twins before Derek took her back to South America, something that still confused Lydia even now.

“This isn’t a defense, but Derek and I didn’t talk for a long time after he came back here. By the time we started talking again, he didn’t really want to bring up anything that happened.”

“Derek wouldn’t talk to you?” Lydia frowned.

Cora raised an eyebrow at Lydia, giving her a look that seemed to say something along the lines of _really?_ “It’s complicated, but no. Derek tried to talk to me.”

Lydia frowned, remembering all the stress Derek had been under when he first came back to Beacon Hills after the debacle with the Alpha Pack. He had only been gone a few weeks, but it was apparently more than enough time to get himself and his uncle into more trouble. After that, everything had snowballed out of control with the Nogitsune, and Lydia had never thought that any of Derek’s stress might have had something to do with Cora. Well, anything beyond the fact of having to part ways with his sister again.

After a minute, Lydia nodded. Cora was staring off into the distance though, like she was concentrating on something. Her attention seemed to return to the table a moment later, and Lydia decided to ask the obvious question. “Why?” She was greeted with a curious look, one that clearly wanted her to elaborate. “Why did you go back? Why did you stop talking to Derek?”

A small, wry smile curled the edges of Cora’s lips, and she looked away as their server chose that exact moment to come to the table with their drinks and a bowl of seaweed chips. Cora immediately pulled her giant mug of hot chocolate to her chest, apparently unbothered by the fact that the ceramic had to have been pretty damn hot with all the steam coming from it. Lydia just watched her and waited for the server to disappear, silently prompting Cora to answer.

“Did Derek send you to interrogate me?”

“What? No!”

Cora eyed her, clearly assessing. “Derek’s been pestering me all week about where I was. Wouldn’t put it past him or Stiles to try to use you to their advantage.”

“Well, _you_ brought it up. Hard not to wonder.”

“Guess I did.”

There was a long stretch of silence, long enough for their server to return with their actual meals. Eventually, after Cora had spent several minutes inhaling her food and a second mug of hot chocolate, she looked up at Lydia, face unreadable.

“I don’t understand why we’re here.”

Lydia finished her bite of salad before responding with a simple, “What do you mean?”

“Why ask me to lunch? If this is a date, we’re off to a terrible start. If it’s not, then I have no idea what’s happening.”

She almost choked at the word ‘date’, but somehow managed to maintain _some_ composure. “Well, Derek and Stiles want us to work together on their wedding. I thought it would be a good idea to catch up before getting down to business.”

“Catch up…” Cora muttered, like she was trying to decide if she should be insulted or not. “All right, then catch me up. And you can skip all the supernatural bullshit. Stiles has been trying to find his calling as a history teacher ever since you left the other day. I’d hate to deprive him of another overly exaggerated story.”

“What a surprise,” Lydia sighed, picking up a fork and absently threading it through her fingers. She stared down at her salad for what was probably a few moments too long, mind drawing a blank on exactly _where_ to start for “catching up.” _Things would be a lot easier if Cora could just try to bullshit some sort of small talk._

Just as Lydia had finally decided on somewhere to start, Cora spoke up. “Look, you’re doing this for my brother and his impressively annoying boyfriend, I get it. I don’t get _why_ , but.” She cut off and shrugged, popping a fry into her mouth in a manner that Lydia could only think to describe as absolutely _obscene_.

“Stiles is—”

“Oh, Stiles is a _lot_ of things,” Cora interrupted, her tone suggesting she had sat through far too many conversations with him; or endured his rant on why harpies and pixies were terrible, ungodly creatures from Hell. “He’s not the point, though.”

Cora looked away for a moment, watching as a waiter walked a large crowd of people past their table and toward the stairs. “The _point_ is that I’m not going to bullshit with you and waste both our time: I don’t want to be here. Not in California, not in Beacon Hills, and I _don’t_ want to be planning a wedding. Or even go to one, for that matter.” The last sentence was muttered, followed by a bitter sigh. “So just tell me what I have to do to get this over with.”

“You do know the wedding isn’t for almost six months, right?”

“Of course it isn’t.”

 

The first item on their checklist, Lydia had decided, was finding a venue. (She had left Derek and Stiles with the task of creating a guest list, both to keep them occupied and to get an important task out of the way. Two birds, one heavy, heavy stone.)

This left Lydia with tasking the _other_ broody Hale. But with the guest list out of her hands and only so much she could do while still in the foundational stages of planning, there wasn’t anything Lydia could ask Cora to do on her own. She had briefly considered sending her to meet with florists, but thought better of it. For all she knew, Cora would manage to find the _one_ florist specializing in sad weddings.

After talking to Stiles and Derek about venue types, Lydia went home and made a list of places to check out. She had asked Cora to do the same, though she wasn’t sure what type of suggestions that would result in since Lydia was pretty suspicious that Cora had managed to take a nap halfway through the meeting.

To her surprise, when she arrived to pick Cora up earlier than the 9 am time they had planned on, she was actually wide awake and getting ready. Stiles told Lydia she had “an annoying habit of going for _exercise_ in the _morning_. What is she, some sort of _psycho?_ ” She didn’t know why this information seemed weird to her, but it did. _Then again, not like you really got to know her the last time she was here..._

Cora was downstairs and ready sooner than planned, and with no reason to delay their outing, they left.

Neither of them made any attempt at conversation once they were in the car. She had asked Cora if she’d found any interesting venues to pursue, and her initial surprise at the long list was quickly extinguished as soon as she realized all of her suggestions were parks or forests, save for the one beach on the list. “Guess we’ll be starting with my list.”

 

“Well, we’ve inspected half the list and ruled out all but two of them.” They were sitting in the car now, just finished interrogating and inspecting the last candidate of the day. Lydia was fairly satisfied with the progress they’d managed to make, even if she had carried most of the weight. Cora, on the other hand, was currently slumped in the passenger seat, looking like she’d just sat through the most boring eight-hour lecture ever.

Lydia started the car, debating whether or not she should say anything to her. She had never seen Cora so… physically apathetic? Was that even the right phrase for it? Their coffee outing had been something Lydia would count as a success, and Cora had been _much_ livelier than this… Surely Lydia hadn’t upset her somehow? She ran through their time together today in her head, trying to remember if she had said or done something that might've annoyed Cora. _More than usual, anyway._

The actual visits to the venues were fairly uneventful. Cora barely spoke the whole day, trailing quietly behind Lydia when they inspected each place, sometimes looking a little listless. There had been a couple times when she had called Lydia over to point out a subtle flaw that would rule out a candidate, like the hotel that had a strange, faint smell of death that seemed to follow them as they checked out the ballroom.

Lydia had wasted no time, driving from venue to venue without lingering or– _or stopping. Shit._ Not eating lunch wasn't that unusual for Lydia, but for a werewolf, it probably wasn’t ideal. Looking over at Cora again, Lydia recognized now the signs of a clear crash.

Grabbing her purse from the back, she dug around in it and threw several granola bars at Cora, who startled up from slouching in the seat. “Wha—?”

“Eat that. We’re going to dinner.”

Cora blinked at her, clearly confused by whatever had just happened. Lydia caught a glimpse of Cora opening the wrapper with shaky fingers as she backed out of the parking lot. Cora began to perk up after the first few bites, devouring the bars faster each time she opened a new one.

_Oh, thank God._

 

After the fiasco of almost killing her new werewolf “friend”, Lydia spaced out the visits between venues, giving Cora plenty of chances to refuel. She even packed more emergency snacks into her purse, because if Cora _did_ end up passing out on her, there wouldn’t be much Lydia would be able to do. _Remember to constantly feed your werewolf, kids._

This new strategy gave Lydia pretty much instant results. While Cora still had a few venues where she didn’t say much, it was now because she had already made up her mind against a place. There had even been one place they’d gone to see where Cora had downright _refused_ to get out of the car. When Lydia walked into the lobby, she was immediately overwhelmed with the stench of burning rubber; she stopped questioning Cora after that.

By the end of the week, the list of contenders had been narrowed down to three: an actual castle in California that had been put together in the early 1900s using parts of other castles (with a library that Derek seemed to be fawning over); a national park that was a little too jungle-y for Lydia’s tastes; and Fabulous Eventualities, an extravagant mini-mansion devoted specifically to fantastical weddings. Lydia was pushing hard for the _actual_ wedding venue; not only was it an extraordinary find, but it had an actual planning staff that would take most of the pressure off of her shoulders. She hadn’t received any pushback from Cora on it, either, which gave Lydia a good feeling about the place.

They had been to Fabulous Eventualities a couple times now to tour, with and without Stiles and Derek, and the place was amazing. Lydia wanted to see what an actual ceremony and reception looked like from them, though it wasn’t exactly considered polite to barge in on someone else’s wedding. Surprisingly, she caught a break when Stiles told her that one of his co-workers was actually getting married there that weekend and he had managed to snag a spot for both her and Cora.

So, with only a day’s notice, Lydia made sure that both she and Cora were ready to attend a complete stranger’s wedding.

 

_I can’t believe she just did my makeup._

Cora stared at herself in the mirror, not quite sure what to do with herself now. The obvious answer would be to finish putting clothes on, but she was still in shock at actually being wrangled into Lydia’s vanity chair and attacked with brushes and powders and _lipstick_ of all things.

Sighing, Cora shook her head and stood up.

Lydia had left the room to let her finish getting ready, but looking down at the clothes on the bed, Cora felt nothing but dread. _It’s just one night. Just a few hours._

_With a bunch of people. That you don’t know. Who’ll want to talk to you. And make small talk. And you can’t even get drunk off the open bar._

“You okay in there?”

Lydia’s voice and a small rap on the door jerked Cora out of her thoughts, head snapping up to look over at the door. “Yeah, uh, just… getting dressed.”

“Still? Did you forget how to put pants on?”

“You’re hilarious. What do you want?”

Lydia walked right in at that, shaking her head at Cora while walking over to the vanity. “I thought you at least knew how to take your clothes _off_ , Hale.”

“What, did you come in for the show?” she asked, finally taking her shirt off and throwing it on the bed.

“You’ve been in here for twenty minutes. Even _I_ don’t take that long to put clothes on.”

“No, you just take ten times as long to settle on what you’re even wearing to begin with.”

Lydia rolled her eyes and picked a necklace up from the vanity table. Drawing it around her neck and working with the clasp, she kept her eyes on Cora. “We’re going to be late if you don’t hurry up.”

“Why do I have to go at all?” she mumbled, picking up the fancy black shirt Lydia had picked out for her and pulling it over her head.

“Because,” Lydia started, moving over to help adjust the gold chains that draped over the shirt’s shoulders and collar, “this is, for whatever reason, what Stiles and Derek want.”

_And what about what I want?_ She bit back the words, taking a deep breath and shoving the feelings away. _It’s just one night._ Picking up the pants, Cora frowned at them. “What kind of color is this?”

“Merlot. You don’t like it?”

“Did someone _spill_ Merlot on them? Is that what this color is?”

Lydia sighed, the long-suffering sigh of someone used to being surrounded by idiots. “Can you just put pants on, please?”

“You’re the one that barged in here while I was changing,” she countered, though she did finally slip the pants on.

“Because you weren’t getting changed!” Lydia threw up her hands, exasperated. She stepped toward Cora again, however, and messed with her hair, moving the loose braid she’d done earlier to drape over her shoulder. “There. You look almost presentable.”

Cora rolled her eyes, looking over just in time to catch the gold bracelet Lydia tossed to her. “Put that on, grab your shoes, and let’s go. I won’t be late because you didn’t want to put clothes on.”

“Fine,” she grumbled, sliding the bracelet on and grabbing the shoes off the floor before following Lydia out the door.

 

“I swear, it’s like you’re _trying_ to torture me,” Cora sighed, shifting to lazily slump against the table, head resting in her hand at an angle.

“Well, if you didn’t act like a _toddler_ and try to hide in closets or play videos on your phone during _someone’s wedding_ , then _maybe_ I wouldn’t have to torture you.”

“You can’t honestly tell me you found that fun.”

“The ceremony or taking your phone away?” Lydia asked, giving Cora an infuriating smirk.

Cora just grunted in response, looking away from her and toward the dancefloor.

“Come on, there has to be at least one thing here you like,” Lydia prompted, turning in her chair to better face Cora.

She looked up at Lydia, locking eyes with her for a moment before sitting up and leaning against the back of her chair. “I _guess_ it isn’t all bad,” she admitted reluctantly. “The bridesmaid tripping over that ridiculous dress was pretty funny.”

Lydia rolled her eyes, but Cora could see a spark of amusement in her eyes. “I didn’t think I’d have to clarify that people getting injured doesn’t count.”

“Oh, please. She broke a shoe. I’d hardly call that an ‘injury.’ She didn’t even _fall_.”

“Those are expensive shoes!”

“So, is your concern for the falling bridesmaid or the shoe? Seems like your priorities are a little skewed.”

“You’re still dodging the question.”

“What a convenient way to bring it back to me.” Reaching a hand up, Cora tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear while giving Lydia a serious look.

“Don’t give me that look. Besides, we’re supposed to be evaluating this place. The clumsy bridesmaid won’t be here if we pick it.”

Cora looked away and glanced around the reception area. It was nice enough: a fancy party area outside the main mansion, surrounded by an extravagant garden. There was even a maze, for anyone that felt like getting lost in shrubbery while being bitten by mosquitoes. Shrugging, she looked back to Lydia. “It doesn’t smell like death or reek of carbon monoxide, so.”

She watched Lydia’s shoulders shake as she let out a heavy sigh. “Good to know you’ve got high standards.”

After a while, they were interrupted by the announcement of dinner being served. Derek and Stiles joined them at the table, clearly enjoying themselves. Cora went quiet when the men sat down, giving them a polite wave while Lydia greeted them, though they barely returned the gesture before diving back into a lively debate over the existence of Atlantis. They were still going when dinner arrived, and only stopped after Stiles got so passionate about his certainty that Atlantis _has_ to exist, dammit, that he ended up collapsing their entire table with a slam of his fist.

Cora gave the table a look of contempt as it lay on the ground, food and wine everywhere, a complete mess. “Quality.”

Shaking her head, she stood up from her chair and nodded at Lydia to follow, leaving her brother and his human disaster to deal with the aftermath. Lydia excused herself more politely than Cora, even apologizing on her behalf, before joining her on the edges of the reception area, near the entrance to the romantic garden maze.

Cora watched the crowd for several moments, waiters running into the chaos Stiles had created and trying to clean it up.

“What’s wrong?” Lydia’s voice dragged Cora back, and she turned to give her a quizzical look. “You’ve been weird all evening. Well, most of it.”

“I’m okay,” she shrugged. “This stuff just isn’t for me.” She nodded in Stiles’ direction, letting herself laugh slightly. “And I don’t know who decided to let him in.”

“God, he’s a wreck,” Lydia muttered, sounding exasperated. After several moments of silence, she turned to Cora with a look of concerned determination. “Are you fighting with Derek?”

“No?”

“Are you lying to me?”

“No.”

Lydia looked her over, eyes narrowed, clearly trying to figure out how to get Cora talking. “Are you _mad_ at Derek?”

“Mmm, no. Not mad.” With an awkward shrug, Cora looked away. “It’s… complicated between us, and something just feels… _off._ ” She tensed as she spoke, watching as Derek and Stiles started to move about the crowd again, slowly getting closer to where she was attempting to hide.

Lydia reached a hand over and gently rubbed Cora’s arm, giving her a sympathetic smile. “The garden maze is right there,” she started, with the slightest hint of hesitation. “Let’s see who’s better at navigating.”

“Issuing a challenge in the romantic garden? Someone’s feeling bold.” Cora smirked a little, though, and turned toward the maze.

They didn’t make it very far before someone slammed into Lydia, knocking her backwards into Cora and landing both of them on the ground. It happened so quickly, Cora wasn’t able to hold back a grumbling feral noise as she hit the cobbled stone ground.

“What the _fuck?_ ” she spat out, moving her hair out of her eyes to glare at the drunk man who’d caused the chaos. He was babbling a string of barely coherent apologies and offering to help, though he made no attempt to reach for either girl.

Lydia seemed dazed for a moment before extricating herself from Cora and getting to her feet, clearly still more composed than the werewolf glaring daggers at a drunk man. After shooing the man away with assurances that they were both fine and Cora _wasn’t_ going to murder him in his sleep, they both took in the damage.

Save for her dignity and a few scratches, Cora was fine. Lydia, on the other hand, had suffered a little more. Cora worried about the blood gushing from her elbow while Lydia fixated over the large rip in the side of her dress. When she reached out in an attempt to leach away the pain, and even see how deep the damage might be, Cora got her hand swatted away. “I’ll take care of it,” Lydia sighed. “I guess I’ll be back.”

Cora watched her walk away, a strange cocktail of feelings intermingling in her. (There was definitely a strong urge to go strangle a particular drunk man in there.) She looked around once Lydia was out of sight, not sure what to do. Their table was destroyed and the thought of joining her brother or Stiles in the crowd was almost as appealing a thought as dancing with the drunk idiot that landed her here.

“Excuse me, dear.”

Cora almost jumped at the voice, too caught up in her own thoughts. “I’m sorry?” She frowned, confused about the woman in front of her. They were almost the same height, though she was clearly much older, easily in her 80’s. Faded blonde hair sat in loose curls around the top of her head, and Cora could almost swear she seemed somehow familiar. “Do I know you?” she asked, searching for anything that could tell her who this woman was.

“Oh, no, dear, I doubt it.” She waved a hand dismissively, smiling at Cora. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I saw Jared run into you and your girlfriend and you hit the ground pretty hard! You can call me Betty, by the way.”

Cora kept staring, feeling completely out of place, almost as if she had been taken to some alternate reality where _somehow_ this was supposed to make sense. She ran Betty’s words over again in her head, trying to figure out what to address first, coming up empty.

“You didn’t hit your head, did you, dear?” Betty asked, looking concerned.

“I… No, I didn’t, I’m okay. I’m fine, thank you. Just a couple scratches.” Cora forced an uncomfortable smile.

“Good! What about your girlfriend? She took off pretty quickly.”

“Oh, Lydia’s not my—”

“Don’t worry, sweetie,” Betty interrupted her, grinning and waving her hand again. “I know all about your situation, and let me just say, I think it’s great that you managed to make it here.”

Cora stopped dead, not sure she could feel any more puzzled and out of place than she did now. “My… situation?”

“Oh, yes! You _are_ Cora, right? The Hale girl? I know Jared said not to say anything, but you two are just so cute! And coming back from Argentina just to be with your true love and get married? If that isn’t romantic, I don’t know what is!”

“It’s… it’s definitely something.” Cora plastered on a smile, but she could feel the rage burning just under the surface, waiting to be freed.

“Your brother’s boyfriend, what’s his name? Smiles? I just think it was so sweet of him to make sure you two could attend and see if you wanted your own wedding here.”

“Smiles did that for us?” she asked, voice a little icier than intended. Not that Betty noticed.

“He did! Drove Jared nuts but it was pretty funny. Anyway, dear, I’ll let you get back to your evening.” Betty nodded behind Cora, where she could hear Lydia approaching at a distance, then shuffled away.

Cora didn’t move, body frozen in place while the cogs in her mind churned into overdrive. _Smiles is **so** dead._

A hand on her shoulder drew Cora back to the real world, though her barely contained rage still roiled and rolled inside, waiting. “Are you okay?”

Lydia was back, elbow bandaged and dress as fixed as she could manage for the moment, though she was giving Cora an alarmed look. _Why the hell can’t everyone mind their own damn business and leave me alone?_

“I have to go,” she muttered, pulling away from her ‘girlfriend’ and beginning to walk away.

“What about Derek and Stiles?”

“ _Fuck_ Stiles,” she spat, words seething with anger.

“Cora, what—?" Lydia reached out for her again, but Cora was already moving.

Moving, moving, gone.

 

It had been extremely tempting to run all the way back to her brother’s house, but after several moments of trying to rein her temper in, Cora made the smarter decision of calling a taxi to take her back. Her anger must have been palpable, judging by the fear scent that the driver radiated and the nervous manner in which he spoke to her. Cora almost felt sorry for him, but ultimately just shoved all her feelings down and silently stared out the window.

Cora wasted no time once she was out of the car, long, deliberate, and angry strides moving her through the front door, up the stairs, and into “her” room.

Even after staying here for a couple weeks, Cora had made no attempt to truly unpack. Save for a small pile of dirty clothes on the floor and a pillow and some blankets on the bed, she kept everything packed away. By the time Stiles and Derek made it home almost two hours later, Cora had changed clothes, loaded all of her things into her suitcases, and packed an overnight backpack.

Three hours had passed since the incident where Betty revealed that Stiles had lied to get Cora and Lydia into the wedding, leaving Cora plenty of time to ruminate on her intense anger. By the time they walked inside to see Cora’s things gathered in the hallway, she had worked her way to an icy determination. The flames still lingered, though, waiting for just the right spark to set them ablaze.

She sat in the kitchen, alert and waiting, registering their confusion and Stiles’ drunken surprise at her things. Cora said nothing, knowing her brother would find her easily. As she expected, it didn’t take them long at all to make it into the kitchen, Stiles immediately slumping into the closest chair.

“Cora, what’s going on?” Derek frowned, thick eyebrows furrowed.

She looked between the two, slow and calculating. “Why don’t you ask your boyfriend, Derek?” she suggested, tone cold.

Derek continued to look confused as he glanced over at Stiles, who was just aware enough to start getting anxious. “Ask him, Derek,” she continued, glaring at the scrawny, drunken man sitting in front of her. “Ask him about how he managed to get me and Lydia into the wedding.” Upper lip twitching with the animal instinct to snarl, Cora made it sound almost criminal. As far as she was concerned, it _was_.

Both men just stared at her, seemingly trying to get a handle on what was happening. Just as Stiles started to splutter out an excuse, Derek cut him off. “I’m sorry, Cora. You weren’t supposed to find out.”

“You _knew?_ ” she spat, a fresh wave of anger spiking to the surface.

“I can talk to her, Der,” Stiles slurred, waving a hand as if to dismiss Derek, but Cora fixed him with a glare that kept both men in place.

“Start talking.”

Stiles glanced away, twitching and making vague gestures with his hands while he worked on finding his words. “It was the only way to get you in, ‘cause they’re full.” When Cora just narrowed her eyes, he fidgeted his way out of the chair while trying again. “They didn’t have the room, y’know? For both of you. So I got creative’n said you guys’re looking ‘cause you’re interested.”

“It didn’t occur to you to tell them the truth? Or that neither of us _had_ to be there?”

“I mean, yeah… but they only had room for one ‘nd you guys’re supposed to be doing the planning thing together, right?”

“For _your_ wedding, dipshit. It doesn’t matter what I think of the place. Get married at the city dump for all I care.”

“Well, yeah, but…” Again, he made more vague gestures, as if this would fully explain his reasoning.

Turning away from him, she focused her glare on Derek now. “I already knew Stiles is an idiot, so what’s _your_ excuse?”

“It’s not like I told him to do it.”

“You didn’t stop him either.”

“Is it really such a big deal?”

His words were simple but hit hard. Unfortunately for him, Cora wouldn’t be brushed aside so easily. “You mean the fact that my only living family and his idiot boyfriend decided to sneak me into a stranger’s wedding by telling them I’m _marrying their wedding planner?_ Yeah, Derek, I think that’s a pretty damn big deal.”

“It wasn’t tha—”

“Yes, Derek, it was _exactly_ that bad. Because that’s exactly what fucking happened. What the hell is _wrong_ with you two?”

“I was just helping!” Stiles burst out from the corner, tumbling with the chair before it clattered onto the floor.

“You can’t even help yourself stand up,” she muttered, angling her body away just enough that she could still look Derek in the eyes while keeping her back to Stiles. “You’ve got something going on, so spit it out.”

“Look, Cora…”

“Now. Or I’m leaving.”

“I just thought it would help, okay?” He sounded extremely frustrated, and it was almost enough to make Cora take some pity on him. Almost.

“Help with what, exactly?”

“I just don’t think you should be running around all over the world and going to another country every couple months. I thought that maybe if you came back for the wedding and helped out… You’d want to stay here.” Derek sighed and glanced over Cora’s head at Stiles, giving him what Cora could only interpret as a ‘help me’ look. “I’m starting a family, Cora, and I wanted you to be around for it.”

A whirlwind of conflicting emotions warred within her, but as usual, her temper won out. “Starting a family, huh?” she grumbled, softly at first, biting her lip and shaking her head just slightly. “And when things get dangerous again, what are you going to do when you can’t just drop Stiles and your kids off in Argentina and _leave?_ ”

Derek flinched, clearly not expecting Cora to start cutting open old wounds. _Except he doesn’t think he did anything wrong._ The confusion and hurt on his face just confirmed it for her. “It was safer for you to go back. You had a pack there… I thought that’s what you wanted?”

“You never even _asked_ , Derek. And then you didn’t even stay there for a week before fucking back off to this Hellhole!” Shaking her head, she shoved past Derek to head towards her luggage by the entrance. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you still don’t know how to talk to someone, though, huh?”

“That’s not fair,” he started, following her out and watching as she grabbed her backpack.

“You know what else isn’t fair, Derek? Finding out your brother is alive and can _so easily_ ditch you in a foreign country with people he doesn’t know after barely a month because he wasn’t even trying to rescue you in the first place.”

She whirled around to face him, backpack swinging hard against her back. Her words had clearly hurt, Derek’s face betraying all the guilt she knew he felt. _It doesn’t change what he did, though. It doesn’t change anything._ “Life’s shitty, Derek. Especially ours.” She glanced around, taking in the extravagant house her brother had been living in for years by now. “Or maybe it’s just mine. At least one of us can just forget.”

She could feel tears threatening to spill over, but she held them back. _Just a little longer._ Derek’s look of hurt and betrayal only made it harder to hold them back.

“I’ll get someone to come for the rest of my things tomorrow.”

“Where are you going?” Derek asked, setting mixed emotions fluttering around again.

There was a lump in her throat as she answered, turning her head so she didn’t have to face him. “Don’t know. Doesn’t matter.” After a slight shrug, she opened the front door. “Have a nice life, Derek.”

She was out the door and gone before he could respond. _It’s easier this way._

 

Hours after the reception, Lydia was still trying to make sense of Cora’s abrupt exit. Had she said something? It didn’t seem likely, since Cora was fine before the drunk groom had run into them. _She didn’t even balk at going into the ‘romantic’ garden._

Derek and Stiles hadn’t noticed Cora’s absence until they were getting ready to leave, but looked concerned when Lydia filled them in. _I’m sure she’ll rant about whatever it is the next time I see her._ Somehow, the thought wasn’t very reassuring.

Eventually, she managed to distract herself by sitting down with Prada and putting on a documentary she’d been saving for a night in. They were only about 15 minutes in before the dog was jumping off her lap and running to the door, alert and dancing from paw to paw. “It’s almost 2 am, Prada, come on. No one’s here,” she muttered, getting off the couch to go scoop him up.

And then the doorbell rang.

Lydia froze, staring at the door and then looking down at Prada. He seemed excited, unafraid, acting like he usually did whenever Cora arrived. _But Cora shouldn’t be here…_ Standing on tiptoes, Lydia peeked through the eyehole before quickly opening the door.

Cora was standing on the porch, tears streaming down her face and a backpack slung over one shoulder.

“Can I stay here tonight?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun dun...?


	3. Undo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Cora had shown up at her doorstep in the early morning hours asking to stay the night, Lydia had expected her to crash on the couch for a few days while huffing and puffing about her brother and Stiles before eventually going back to stay with them. She was thrown for a loop when she woke up the next morning to Cora booking a plane ticket to Russia.

[ ](https://i.imgur.com/UjT3oNu.png)

Living with Cora was like living with a strange combination of an eccentric roommate and a semi-feral cat. She was aloof, held a strange sleeping schedule, and spent the crepuscular hours engaging in strange activities like “running” and “going through Lydia's things”. She was hard to find when you wanted her and in none of the logical places. But as soon as you did _anything_ with food, Cora magically appeared. (Which was great when Lydia actually _needed_ to find her.)

What surprised Lydia was that for the most part, they actually got along. She was definitely secretive and touchy at moments, which had concerned Lydia when she first asked Cora to stay with her, but it didn’t take long to learn what appeared to set her off.

The biggest thing was Derek, which had been a story Lydia’d had a Hell of a time dragging out of all three boneheads involved. Stiles was both apologetic and defensive while Derek had become more withdrawn and accepting of Cora’s insults. Cora, on the other hand, wouldn’t admit that she had done anything wrong at all. For all her blame shifting and justifications, though, Lydia had a pretty good idea that Cora didn’t feel as great as she claimed about what happened.

Still, Lydia had at least managed to keep Cora in Beacon Hills. For now, anyway.

When Cora had shown up at her doorstep in the early morning hours asking to stay the night, Lydia had expected her to crash on the couch for a few days while huffing and puffing about her brother and Stiles before eventually going back to stay with them. She was thrown for a loop when she woke up the next morning to Cora booking a plane ticket to Russia.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Morning to you, too,” she’d grunted, not looking up from her laptop.

“Are you serious?” Lydia persisted, even going so far as to shut Cora’s laptop and sit down on the couch next to her, ignoring the slight sway away from Lydia and the confused once-over. “You get in one fight with your brother and decide to run away to Russia?”

“I’m not ‘running away.’ I shouldn’t have come back here to begin with,” Cora countered, eyeing the laptop before placing it on the nearest side table. “Besides, you don’t even know what happened. They fucked _you_ over, too.”

“How?”

Cora huffed, looking slightly flustered and indignant. “They just did, okay? Do you have to make this difficult?”

“Uh, if it means keeping you out of Russia, then _yes._ ”

“Ugh.”

Cora slumped back into the couch, defeated for now. Lydia frowned and turned to look properly at her, despite the pillow now resting over Cora’s face. “I thought you’d be happy to see your brother again.”

The pillow bobbed briefly, which Lydia interpreted as a shrug. There was a short stretch of silence before Cora dropped the pillow back into her lap and clutched it tightly to her chest. “It’s complicated.”

“You know, cryptic answers and being emotionally constipated isn’t cute or fun. It’s just annoying.”

Cora looked affronted, but Lydia just looked at her, waiting. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“I _can’t_ understand if you don’t tell me. Seriously, Cora, what could they have done that’s so bad you can’t tell me?”

A pause, and then: “We only got into the wedding because they told people we’re getting married.”

“Oh.” The word was clipped, voice barely a squeak. “Well…” Lydia drew in a breath to continue but was immediately cut off by her angry “fiancée”.

“‘Well?’ _Well_ nothing, Lydia. Whose side are you on? They’re using us!”

“Woah, woah, wait,” she started, looking at Cora with narrowed eyes. “When did there become sides? And they didn’t use us, Cora. They just… lied to several people. Including us.”

“You sound so convinced,” Cora sniped, giving Lydia a nasty look. “Maybe you’re fine with this, but they lied to get me out here and now they’re lying to keep me here. How else am I supposed to feel?”

Lydia didn’t have a response for that, sighing in defeat. “I don’t know what to tell you, Cora, but Russia isn’t the answer. Just… take some time to cool off, okay? Visit Russia another time.”

Cora grunted, clearly unhappy. She wasn’t reaching for her laptop, though, and Lydia would take what she could get.

 

Things weren’t smooth sailing afterward, but they were getting better. At the very least, it was hard to have problems with a roommate that barely seemed to exist more than a few times a day. Lydia was never sure if Cora left the house for anything other than exercise and asking seemed off the table; all she really knew was that sometimes Cora was harder to find than a wolf in California. _Ha._

Almost two weeks had passed, and she suspected there hadn’t been any contact between Cora and Derek since. It seemed like a bad idea to ask Cora, but Stiles was quick to confirm.

“We’ve both tried talking to her, but there’s no answer, Lydia. Derek’s really upset and he’s afraid she’s taken off again.”

Lydia sighed, glancing around the living room for any werewolf ears. She was almost sure she was alone, but with Cora, she could never tell. “What did you expect, Stiles? You’ve both been lying to her. Did you think she wouldn’t find out? She’s not stupid.” Stiles started protesting, as usual, but Lydia found her second wind and breezed right over him. “And for that matter, you’ve been lying to _me_ , which, frankly, is insulting. What good did you think that would do?”

“It was the only way we could get you guys into the wedding!” he said, defensive.

“By lying and saying Cora’s my fiancée on leave from being stationed in Argentina? If you were going to make up a ridiculous lie, the _least_ you could have done was tell us. It’s not hard.”

“I didn’t think you’d go for it if I told you,” he muttered.

“Once again, Stiles, we’re not stupid.”

“I know, I _know_ ,” he sighed. A brief silence, then a sigh. “Look, you can be mad at me, okay? But Derek… He’s really upset that Cora won’t talk to him.”

“You think I can change that?” she asked, incredulous. “I’m not a mediator, Stiles.”

“Well, you’re not a wedding planner either, but you’re doing great at that. Why not give mediating a try?”

“ _Good bye_ , Stiles.” She waited a second before hanging up the phone, knowing there’d likely be some sort of interjection.

“Wait, wait!” Right on time. “What if he just comes over some time? To try to talk to her?”

“Fine, whatever. But I’m not getting involved. And if Cora doesn’t want him here, he has to leave.”

Conflicted on how she wanted, or even expected, this meeting to go, Lydia hung up the phone.

 

Cora wasn’t thrilled when she gave her the news, but Lydia knew better than to let Derek come over unannounced. Cora felt hurt enough without Lydia piling on, however well-intentioned.

Derek didn’t show up right away, and the longer he waited, the less sure Lydia was how the eventual visit would go. What she didn’t anticipate, however, was the gruff, well-muscled man showing up at her door holding a tiny kitten.

Lydia stared. Prada barked. “What the hell is that?”

“Is Cora here?” he asked, ignoring the question and looking easily over Lydia’s shoulder and into the house.

“Probably. I’m sure she’s somewhere,” she muttered, still staring at the kitten in Derek’s giant hands. “Why do you have a cat?”

“Do you mind if I look for her?” he asked, moving closer so that Lydia had no other option than to move or be trampled.

“Yeah, sure, come on in with your mystery kitten,” she muttered, closing the door behind him.

“What the hell is that?” She could hear Cora shouting from the backyard and guessed that Derek had found his sister.

Would it be rude to watch them fight? Probably. But with Cora shouting at their guests, she felt compelled to keep tabs on them. Looking through the kitchen window, she had a clear view of them on the back porch where Cora looked personally affronted by the small bundle of fur in Derek’s grasp. He looked disappointed, like he couldn’t understand how Cora could be mad at him while he had a kitten.

“I wanted to talk to you,” he said finally, holding the tiny cat out to Cora, who refused to take it.

“Then talk.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” he said after a moment, sorrow filling his voice.

“You should be.”

“I am, really, believe me. But Cora, I—” He sighed, shaking his head. “I wish you could understand why I did it.”

“Well, I don’t.”

Cora’s face showed nothing but cold fury, and the absolute dejection on Derek’s left Lydia’s heart aching. Both emotionally stunted and broken, this conversation was clearly a losing game from the start.

“What do you want me to do, Cora? I can’t stand having you mad at me. I don’t want to lose you again.”

There was a momentary flicker in Cora’s eyes, a flash of gold in the dim light, and she looked almost murderous. Then she softened, a heavy sigh escaping. “Is it really so hard to just talk to me, Derek? That’s all I wanted.”

Lydia decided it was probably time to move away from the window and headed back to the living room. She tried to get back into her textbook, but she was too keyed up, mind racing as she played over scenarios that could be happening in her own backyard right now. It was only an hour later when Cora finally came back inside, but it had felt like an eternity.

Lydia jumped up to sitting and turned to watch Cora cross the house toward her. “How’d it go?” she asked, noticing the silver bundle of fluff now draped lazily over Cora’s arm. “Seriously, what is that? No one wants to answer that question.”

“Derek decided that kittens were a good form of apology,” Cora told her as she sat down. “So meet Pixie the apology kitten.”

Pixie the apology kitten curled up in Cora’s lap as she spoke, making herself at home. “You’re keeping it?”

“I don’t know,” she said, gently scratching the kitten’s silvery spotted head. “I travel too much for a cat. I mean, I literally don’t have a home. That’s probably not healthy for a cat.”

“Or for you. Why don’t you have a home?” It’s not like she couldn’t afford one. Even if Cora didn’t have the entire Hale fortune to her name, Derek would have helped her with that, no hesitation.

She shrugged. “No point. Don’t need one when you never stay anywhere long.” She talked about it like this was normal, no big deal, but to Lydia it was just sad. How could she willingly live with nowhere to just _stay?_ What kind of life was it, to have everything but nothing that was really yours?

This was something that perplexed Lydia for the next several days as her house slowly morphed into kitten heaven. For an animal Cora didn’t plan to keep, she was sparing no expense in its care. Lydia never thought she’d have to tell Cora that _no_ , she can’t just casually cut cat-sized holes in the wall to make tunnels or that buying a cat tower large enough for Cora to nap on was out of the question.

Lydia would have told her to give the kitten back to Derek if it wasn’t for the fact that Cora seemed to be happier. She didn’t know for sure, but Lydia suspected it had been a long time since Cora had really felt genuinely happy. Lydia could deal with a cat for a few months if it meant Cora was a little less cranky.

 

While things were getting easier at home, however, the rest of Lydia’s life seemed to be conspiring against her. Working two jobs for the school while still attending classes and working on her PhD was hard enough without the added stress of being a new adult with no true idea how to function on her own. Working two jobs allowed her to scrape by, but taking Cora in was making that a little harder. The situation wasn’t dire, but it worried her. Cora had tried to pay her for letting her stay, but Lydia wasn’t going to take her money if she could help it.

With virtually no free time and any time off spent wedding planning or with a werewolf lurking nearby, the stress began to mount. Lydia hadn’t even realized how much pressure she was under until Cora left for the full moon.

“The Snow Moon is on Sunday.” Lydia looked up at her, startled and confused. She had been buried in a textbook, completely unaware Cora was even there.

“The what?”

“The full moon? It’s Sunday.”

“Oh, right,” she muttered, stifling a yawn.

“Can you watch Pixie for a few days?”

“Why days? The full moon is only for one night.” Lydia studied her, feeling a twinge of some strange emotion. She didn’t like this.

“It’s safer this way,” Cora insisted. Lydia asked several more questions, but Cora would divulge no more information. Frustrated and looking forward to time alone, she gave in. If Cora got into trouble, it was her own damn fault for going out alone and refusing to tell anyone where.

With Cora gone before dawn the next morning, Lydia decided to take the weekend for herself. It had been far too long since she’d had a moment alone. She slept in for the first time in months, waking just long enough to feed Prada and Pixie before collapsing into bed and snoozing away into the afternoon.

When she began to wake up, however, something felt strange. It took her a moment to realize what it was: the silence. It was unnerving and… lonely. _But it never bothered me before…_

She shook her head and sat up. So what if it was quiet? That’s what she’d been wanting for _months_. Being around nosey professors and nosier werewolves left no room for anything personal, and Lydia barely had a chance to hear herself think since that summer. Now was her chance to do something for herself.

Lydia found out very quickly how difficult that was when she could barely remember what it _was._ What were her hobbies before she ran around with cryptids? Getting laid, as nice as it sounded, was too much effort. Watching TV was an option, but she was so behind on everything, she didn’t even know where to begin with catching up. Unread books called her name and household chores were begging to be done. She sighed. Was time off really even something that existed? It didn’t seem to.

Trying to watch TV proved fruitless for much the same reason that reading didn’t work: she couldn’t focus. Giving up, she decided to get chores over and done with, only to realize she didn’t have much to do. _Guess I’ll have to thank Cora later._

She tried visiting her mom, only to learn she was out of town for the weekend. Taking Prada to the park was nice and relaxing, but it was over quickly. She considered seeing what Stiles and Derek were up to, but decided against it. She didn’t feel like fielding questions about Cora, especially if Derek was running on edge too.

After many attempts to relax and take time off, Lydia found herself drinking on the floor at home, going over wedding plans. It was ridiculous how many things needed to be done to pull off such a standard event. You would think someone would have streamlined this process by now- oh wait.

Sighing, she decided to organize the mess they had accumulated so far.

 

As the night went on and the wine disappeared, Lydia grew increasingly bewildered by websites that claimed to help outline the planning process. Who made _websites_ just to advertise their wedding? Wasn’t that what the invitations were for? And why the hell did you need to buy a dress eleven months out from the date? Why did guys get to put that off for an extra six months? Who the hell plans their dinner before their _clothes?_

Realizing she had hit a wall where nothing useful was going to happen, Lydia grabbed her wine and moved to the couch. Drunk and exhausted, she was finally able to sink into something on TV. The rest of the weekend proved to be about as fulfilling. Days spent trying desperately to keep herself entertained and decimating the local wine supply by night.

With Monday morning came the expected hangover from a weekend spent binge drinking, and Lydia drudged her way through the day. Nagging at the back of her mind was the thought that, with the full moon over, Cora should be home today. Stranger still, she was excited to have Cora and all her snark back.

Excitement turned to worry, however, when Cora still wasn’t home by the time Tuesday was drawing to a close. She was probably fine, but Lydia couldn’t shake her anxious thoughts. Was she hurt? Hiding? Was it time to start looking or alerting the others? What was the protocol for a werewolf that didn’t come home?

And what if she didn’t want to?


End file.
